cliff budget negotiations to future increases in the nation's debt ceiling. "the new york times" reported republicans might accept higher tax rates on wealthier americans to avoid triggering tax hikes for everyone. in return, they'd demand greater spending cuts next year before raising the federal borrowing limit. >> if congress in any way suggests that they're going to tie negotiations to debt ceiling votes and take us to the brink of default once again as part of a budget negotiation, which, by the way, we have never done in our history until we did it last year, i will not play that game because we've got to... we've got to break that habit before it starts. >> reporter: the 2011 standoff between the president and republicans led the nation to the brink of national default. standard and poor's even lowered its rating on u.s. government bonds. now, the president has proposed he be given authority to raise the debt ceiling without congressional action. house republicans reject that idea. and they've called for raising revee wthout rate hikes, plus major savi